Listening

I was watching the interaction between a doctor and a patient a little while back. The doctor wanted to go home and was trying to hurry through and be done with the appointment, and the patient picked up on it. At one point, the two were nearly in a shouting match. The patient was saying, you’re not listening to me, and the doctor was saying here’s your diagnosis, and there's no way to know the answer to your questions. Interestingly enough, this appointment took just as long as the time a different doctor saw that patient. Other interesting point - during that appointment, there were 2 fewer frustrated people. Because that doctor wanted to care for the patient, even if that meant listening for an extra three minutes to the same story repeated in several different ways. I realize that there isn’t always time to sit and listen. However, attitude matters. 

How many times do we go through interactions with people like this? Listening but not listening, technically present but actually elsewhere. Here’s to truly engaging with the people we meet.